Jim and I are here to talk everyone through their complicated feelings about “The Last of the Starks”, as well as to sit in judgment of the latest batch of fan theories. I lead a group therapy session, and struggle to come to grips with my conflicting thoughts on Dany’s possible turn as heel, as…

As we announced last week, we’ve declared #FanBankruptcy, and are along for the ride on this saddleless dragon we call Game of Thrones. Keeping this in mind, it was nice to see this episode, “The Last of the Starks”, run back to their roots in setting up some classic court politics and intrigue, with multiple betrayals and backstabbing in the offing! Jaime and Brienne hooked up! Pod is still very much the Rod! The Stark girls won grim smiles from the Hound! On the other hand, they’re still struggling with the way they are telling the story they want to tell; characters die in unbelievable ways, and crucially characters then later live in completely unbelievable ways. With just two more episodes left, hopefully the Double D’s haven’t declared creative bankruptcy and we’ll get a few twists and turns that manage to please most.

The Instant Talk podcast is our aftershow, with our own quick thoughts about the episode followed by an interactive chat discussion with our fans, live on YouTube. The first half is released as the Instant Take podcast. The audio from the interactive section is released as a premium podcast just for our club members.

We’re excited to have our buddy Kim Renfro from Insider back on to help us work through our feelings about “The Long Night”! Kim’s writing a book on Thrones, which is available for pre-order now. We discuss GRRM and the Double D’s relationship, and how we feel the final season of the show will reflect the future(?) potential(?) books. Then we consider a ton of amazing feedback from you! The listener!

After further review, we feel like Game of Thrones’ epic episode, “The Long Night” was structurally sound, but mechanically weak. Dark, muddy, with ambiguous action, we thought the setup and anticipation was strong, and we’re not even upset about the way in ended, but there is so much head scratching about how we got there, and how utterly passive most of the heroes (and even head villain) was throughout most of the episode. Obvious the fandom is quite torn over the immediate aftermath of “The Long Night”, and only time will tell whether Thrones can deliver a holistic end that will leave the majority feeling satisfied, but there is quite a bit more work to be done on that front than we’d have expected after last week’s excellent setup. We’ll be back Friday to talk about the episode from a Lore/Book standpoint, and of course we’ll be back this Sunday to see how our heroes fair after surviving the Night. See you then!

The Instant Talk podcast is our aftershow, with our own quick thoughts about the episode followed by an interactive chat discussion with our fans, live on YouTube. The first half is released as the Instant Take podcast. The audio from the interactive section is released as a premium podcast just for our club members.